In recent years, China has been undergoing a metro railway construction boom in order to alleviate the urban traffic congestion problem resulting from the rapid urbanization and population growth in many metropolises. In the construction of metro systems, deep excavations and continuous dewatering for construction of the metro tunnels and stations remain a challenging and high risk task in densely populated urban areas. Intelligent computational methods and techniques have exhibited the exceptional talent in dealing with the complicated problems inherent in the deep excavation and dewatering practice. In this paper, an intelligent risk assessment system for deep excavation dewatering is developed and has been applied in the project of Hangzhou Metro Line 1 which is the first metro line of the urban rapid rail transit system in Hangzhou, China. The specific characteristics and great challenges in deep excavation dewatering of the metro-tunnel airshaft of Hangzhou Metro Line 1 are addressed. A novel design method based on the coupled three-dimensional flow theory for dewatering of the deep excavation is introduced. The modularly designed system for excavation dewatering risk assessment is described, and the field observations in dewatering risk assessment of the airshaft excavation of Hangzhou Metro Line 1 are also presented.
With the rapid expansion of industrialization and urbanization, traffic congestion has become a serious social problem in most of the large cities in China. Establishment of a large-scale metro network has been recognized to be a most effective way in alleviating the urban traffic congestion problem [
It has been well known that the dewatering of the confined aquifer for deep excavations may bring adverse impacts on the surrounding buildings and environments, such as consolidation and compression of the soil layers, settlement and deformation of the piles, cracking and inclination of the buildings, and so forth [
Chen and Xiang [
Up to now, a set of nature-inspired computational methodologies and approaches, such as artificial neural networks, fuzzy logic systems, genetic algorithms, and so forth, have been developed and are being powerful tools for quantitatively identifying the constitutive parameters and solving the optimization problems in various engineering fields [
Hangzhou Metro Line 1 is the first metro line of the urban rapid rail transit system in Hangzhou, China, which is one of the largest municipal projects of Hangzhou and is being constructed starting from 28 March 2007 and will be officially put into operation in the end of October 2012. This metro line has a total length of 48 km and 34 stations, connecting Hangzhou downtown with suburban area of the city. It starts from the south at the Xianghu Station in Xiaoshan District, stretches northwards to the Binjiang Station adjacent to the Qiantang River, crosses beneath the Qiantang River to the Fuchun Road Station, passes through Hangzhou downtown, and ends in the Linping Station, with a branch line ending in Xiasha District which diverges from the main line at the Jiubao Station. The 2nd construction segment of Hangzhou Metro Line 1 covers from the Binjiang Station to the Jiubao Station with a length of 25 km. In this construction section, a two-lane single-bore shield tunnel has been constructed under the Qiantang River to link the Binjiang Station and the Fuchun Road Station, with two airshafts (the southern airshaft and the northern airshaft) being settled at both sides of the Qiantang River, as illustrated in Figure
River-crossing metro tunnel and airshafts.
In this study, the deep excavation and dewatering strategy for the southern airshaft will be addressed. As illustrated in Figure
Schematic of southern airshaft excavation (unit: mm).
Plan view
Cross-sectional view
With the aid of the static cone penetration tests, the foundation of the southern airshaft can be divided into 20 soil layers in the depth direction. Table
Hydraulic and mechanical properties of soil layers of southern airshaft foundation.
No. | Soil layer | Thickness of soil layer (m) | Coefficient of permeability (cm/s) | Modulus of compressibility (MPa) |
---|---|---|---|---|
|
Miscellaneous fill soil | 0.70~3.10 |
|
— |
|
Plain fill soil | 0.30~6.00 |
|
6.5 |
|
Sandy silt | 3.4 |
|
7.0 |
|
Sandy silt | 3.50~9.70 |
|
8.5 |
|
Sandy silt | 1.00~5.90 |
|
5.5 |
|
Silty sand and sandy silt | 1.60~7.00 |
|
7.0 |
|
Silt | 4.20~10.95 |
|
10.0 |
|
Sandy silt | 0.80~6.20 |
|
5.5 |
|
Silt | — |
|
10.5 |
|
Silty soft clay | 2.60~6.70 |
|
2.6 |
|
Silty soft clay | 1.50~3.70 |
|
2.7 |
|
Silty soft clay | 1.00~8.30 |
|
2.8 |
|
Silt | 0.50~3.85 |
|
8.0 |
|
Silty soft clay | 0.80~8.20 |
|
3.0 |
|
Silty-fine sand | 1.80~8.50 |
|
8.5 |
|
Silty clay | 1.90~4.30 |
|
3.2 |
|
Silty clay | 2.80~4.60 |
|
4.5 |
(14)1 | Medium sand | — |
|
11.0 |
(14)2 | Rounded pebble | — |
|
— |
During the dewatering process of the deep excavation, one of the key problems is how to handle the issue of confined water decompression which is the most critical risk sources in the deep excavation practices. Currently existent design methods for dewatering of the deep excavation are primarily based on the theory of groundwater dynamics and have the following limitations: (i) the existing design methods for dewatering of the deep excavation are originated from the water supply theory and have not sufficiently taken into account the function of the waterproof curtain of the supporting structure; (ii) the empirical equations or the analytical methods are mainly adopted in the existing design methods for dewatering of the deep excavation with the fact of ignoring the detouring flow effect of the underground wall; (iii) both the anisotropic property of the soil layer and the three-dimensional flow effect of the partially penetrating well near the underground wall are neglected in the existing design methods for dewatering of the deep excavation.
For deep excavation construction of the southern airshaft of Hangzhou Metro Line 1, the traditional dewatering method is lack of robustness in fulfilling the targeted drawdown requirement. In this connection, a novel design method based on the coupled three-dimensional flow theory for dewatering of the airshaft excavation is developed in recognition that the implementation of the full waterproof curtain is highly difficult and costly. In the proposed method, the coupling effects amongst the underground continuous wall, the seepage well, and the soil layers are fully taken into account to reach the targets of maximizing the water-level drawdown inside the airshaft excavation and minimizing both the pump output inside the airshaft excavation and the water-level drawdown outside the airshaft excavation. Figure
Design and implementation procedure for dewatering of airshaft excavation.
In recognizing the complexity of dewatering for the confined water in the round gravel layer, an intelligent risk assessment system has been developed to ensure the construction safety during the dewatering process for the southern airshaft excavation. This system is modularly designed and consists of four independent modules: Module 1—Water-level Automatic Collection and Surveillance System (WL-ACSS), Module 2—Water-level Remote Transmission and Assessment System (WL-RTAS), Module 3—Water-level Automated Alarming System (WL-AAS), and Module 4—Auxiliary and Inspection System (AIS). The integration of these four modules is shown in Figure
Modular architecture of intelligent risk assessment system.
The WL-ACSS system employs advanced water-level automatic instruments and high-precision vibrating-wire water-level sensors to automatically monitor the underground water-level of the airshaft excavation. It is devised to continuously collect and record the kinetic water-level data for both the observation wells and the pumping wells within a designated time interval. Incorporated with the customized software, the WL-ACSS system is capable of graphically displaying the monitored water-level data and intuitively reflecting the present operational condition of depressurization dewatering. By so doing, the abnormal phenomenon during the dewatering for the airshaft excavation could be readily seized and surveilled in real time to facilitate decision making on timely actions in the event of an emergency.
The WL-RTAS system compiles the monitored water-level data acquired by the WL-ACSS system and generates the specified files suitable for remote transmission through tethered and/or wireless networks. Once the client computers receive the transmitted files, the real-time water-level data will be evaluated with the aid of the coupled three-dimensional flow model which can be expressed by
The WL-AAS system includes the water-level anomaly alarming system and the power-supply interruption alarming system. For the water-level anomaly alarming system, the warning facilities are allocated at the wellheads and the control room for generating the alarm bumming with light signals. The dynamic variation of the water-level of the airshaft excavation will be tracked and the alarm trigger will be activated once the abnormal water-level is identified by use of a novel threshold detection algorithm. The power-supply interruption alarming system will promptly notify the site managers to inspect or switch the electric circuits when the power goes out.
The AIS system provides the accessory equipment for the intelligent risk assessment system and a laptop-computer-aided portable system for inspecting and maintaining sensors, data acquisition units, and cable networks.
After rationally disposing the pumping wells and the observation wells around the region of airshaft excavation, field pumping experiments have been conducted with the purpose of providing sufficient data samples for numerical simulation study of the coupling effect amongst the underground wall, the seepage well, and the soil layers, inferring the hydro-geological parameters of the soil layers and the single-well water flow rate, and validating the hydraulic relationships between different soil layers and the feasibility of confined aquifer dewatering. Figure
Dewatering wells distributed around southern airshaft excavation (unit: mm).
Multiwell pumping experiments have been carried out for efficiency assessment of the dewatering wells inside the southern airshaft excavation (Y1~Y4) and outside the southern airshaft excavation (S1~S4), respectively. The water-level drawdown of the observation wells (YG1 and G1) has been continuously recorded by the water-level automatic collection system and remotely transmitted to the control room in real time. For the pumping experiments inside the southern airshaft excavation, four pumping wells will be activated in sequence at a time interval of 2 hours and then ceased sequentially at the same time interval; while for the four pumping experiments outside the southern airshaft excavation, the time interval for turn-on and shut-down of the pumping wells is 10 hours.
Figure
Water-level drawdown of observation wells during multiwell pumping experiments inside southern airshaft excavation.
Figure
Water-level drawdown of observation wells during multiwell pumping experiments outside southern airshaft excavation.
Based on the measurement data from the field pumping experiments, the hydraulic parameters of different soil layers are derived by inverse simulation analysis, and then the conceptual model of excavation dewatering will be improved to be a quantitative analytical model for further dewatering efficiency analysis and risk assessment of various scenarios. Meanwhile, with such an updated analytical model, the interaction analysis between the underground continuous wall and the dewatering wall can be executed to facilitate the dewatering optimization design, dewatering mechanism analysis, and dewatering method extrapolation. Figure
Flowchart of inverse simulation analysis for deep excavation dewatering.
Figure
Water-level drawdown versus insertion depth of underground continuous wall.
Water output volume versus insertion depth of underground continuous wall.
The safety of deep excavation dewatering for the metro tunnels and stations has gained great concerns which will bring geological disasters and pose threat to the public safety in metropolitan regions. In recognition of the limitations existent in the traditional dewatering method, a novel design method for excavation dewatering has been developed on the basis of the coupled three-dimensional flow theory. An intelligent risk assessment system has been developed in modular architecture and applied to evaluate the safety of excavation dewatering for the metro-tunnel airshaft of Hangzhou Metro Line 1.
In this study, the following specific conclusions are drawn: (i) there is a great difference of water-level drawdown between the observation well inside the airshaft excavation and that outside the airshaft excavation during multiwell pumping experiments inside the airshaft excavation; this is because the underground continuous wall obstructs the hydraulic connection between the confined aquifers inside and outside the airshaft excavation; (ii) the water-level drawdown results of the observation wells during multiwell pumping experiments outside the airshaft excavation reveal that the dewatering scheme by pumping the wells outside the airshaft excavation is inappropriate; (iii) with the increasing of the insertion depth of the underground continuous wall, the water-level drawdown will increase gradually while the predicted water output volume will decrease.
This research work was jointly supported by the Science Fund for Creative Research Groups of the NSFC (Grant no. 51121005), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant no. 51178083, 51222806), and the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (Grant no. NCET-10-0287). The authors also wish to express their thanks to the Hangzhou Metro Group Co., Ltd., for permission to publish this paper.